


What We Have To Do

by ms_scarlet



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Bellamy PoV, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers for Season 2 finale, all I write is angst, brief violent nightmare thing, idk why, post season two finale, tiny bit of swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 10:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3688290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms_scarlet/pseuds/ms_scarlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the air turned cooler, the forest burst into color and the leaves started to fall, and all Bellamy saw was death and decay. He realized that Clarke had been gone longer than he'd known her. He'd lived most of his life without knowing her, so it didn't seem like it should be such a striking realization, but crashing to Earth was such a cataclysmic event, he realized he'd been thinking of it as a new life beginning and now she'd been out of it longer than she was there. </p>
            </blockquote>





	What We Have To Do

_Fall_

As the air turned cooler, the forest burst into color and the leaves started to fall, and all Bellamy saw was death and decay. He realized that Clarke had been gone longer than he'd known her. He'd lived most of his life without knowing her, so it didn't seem like it should be such a striking realization, but crashing to Earth was such a cataclysmic event, he realized he'd been thinking of it as a new life beginning and now she'd been out of it longer than she was there. 

 

**

 

That night, Octavia found him sitting just outside the main gate with a stolen jar of Monty's perfected freedom batch. The council looked the other way when Monty started producing moonshine again. Kane seemed to understand that the remaining delinquents needed some leeway as they recovered from the mountain and no one was going to turn down a steady supply of alcohol as the nights grew longer and froze.

"Come on big brother, let's get you inside." She wrapped her hands around his arm and pulled but he refused to move. He liked this spot, he came here every night he wasn't on duty guarding the fence. He felt grounded here, it was the last place he saw her.

"Do you think she's warm enough, O?"

Octavia stopped tugging and dropped down next to him with a huff. "She's fine, Bell. If there's one thing Clarke knows how to do, it's survive."

He flinched at the bitterness in her voice. He knew Octavia hadn't made peace with what they'd had to do. They'd had several public screaming matches about it, much to the discomfort of the rest of the camp. Well, she screamed and he stared, his jaw clenched and his shoulders hunched, until she'd throw up her hands and storm away. He'd avoided talking about Clarke with her since the last one but that night his guard was down.

"I taught her that, you know, to survive at any cost. That it doesn't mean you're a bad person or that it's who you are." He violently ripped a clump of grass out of the ground and flung it away. "I told her that right after I finished torturing your boyfriend." The words left an ugly taste in his mouth and he swallowed another gulp of moonshine hoping it would wash it away. It didn't. 

"I know," Octavia faltered, taking a breath and starting again. "I know we've all done ugly things. And I know that she faced harder choices than most of us. I don't think- I _know_ - I'll never agree with some of the choices she made, but I get that she had to make them and I get that she only had shit options to choose from. I know you don't think I do, but I see that and I can forgive her for it. What I can't forgive her for is what she's done to you."

"She did what she had to do." Bellamy muttered, digging his fingers into the cool earth. He tried to ignore the yawning pit in his chest because if what she had to do meant asking him to walk into hell or leaving him to shoulder the burden of staying alone then that's what he has to do. He bore it so she didn't have to. 

"Maybe she did," Octavia grabbed his drink and took a shot. "But I'll never be able to forgive anyone who makes you look like this."

"Like what?" He asked, even though he didn't really want to know.

"Like you're a ghost in your own life." She leaned into him, lending him her warmth. "She told you to stay, right?"

"To take care of them," he whispered.

"Then stay, Bell!" She knocked her shoulder into his hard enough to jolt him sideways. "Because right now you're here but you're not here and it's worse than if you'd left with her."

"But I _didn't_ , O!" He dropped his head into his hands and twisted his fingers into his hair tight enough to hurt. "I didn't because I couldn't and she didn't want me to. I forgave her, I told her we were in this together and it wasn't enough. _I_ wasn't enough."

Octavia didn't respond for a long moment and he watched his breath ghost into the night and disappear. He felt the weight of everything he'd done and failed to do pressing down on him and smothering him.

"Or maybe," she said, her words coming slow, as though she wanted to give each one enough time to truly reach him. "Maybe she knew we needed you more."

"What do you mean?" He looked up at her, sitting so straight and so proud but still his baby sister, her eyes imploring him to listen to her.

"I mean we need you, Bell, and she knows that. This place?" She gestured over her shoulder at the camp looming behind them. "You're a huge part of holding this place together. Kane listens to you and the council listens to Kane. You know how to survive on the ground and you know how to make sure other people do too. And the rest of us? The ones who survived the mountain? They're starting to get better and a large part of that is because of you."

He started at her words. "I'm not- I haven't-"

"You're _here_ , Bell. You care about them, not because they're faceless members of a population, but because they're themselves. They know that and they know you'll take care of them and not just the greater good. That matters." This time she twisted around so she could punch him in the shoulder and damn if it didn't hurt. "So _be here_. Keep your promise, take care of us."

He smiled a little and it felt like his face was breaking apart, it'd been so long since he'd used the muscles. "I thought you could take care of yourself."

Octavia rolled her eyes, tossed her hair over her shoulder and finished his drink. "Obviously _I_ can, but have you seen some of them? I can't believe they've made it this far."

She patted his shoulder as she stood. "Just...don't become a ghost, Bell. We have too many of those," she said before striding back into camp.

 

***********

 

_Winter_

The first snow began to fall and Bellamy hated it. He wondered if Clarke found shelter or if she was still wandering, mercilessly trudging through the cold.

He sat in the yard next to a bonfire that flickered merrily as people wandered out of the doors of the Arc, gasping with wonder at the fat, white flakes drifting and spiraling down to the ground. He heard Harper laughing, saw her face light up in a way it hadn’t since before the mountain, as she stepped outside and reached a hand to sky.

He scowled because Clarke should be there. She should see Miller sneaking up behind Monty and pelting him in the back of the head with a snowball. She should laugh with Monroe as Monty chased after him, slipping and sliding as he tried to gain traction on the frozen ground. He could picture her face in exquisitely painful detail, how her nose would scrunch up as she tilted her head back and tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue like Octavia. She should be there, surrounded by her people, safe and happy, and not out on a self-imposed penitential walkabout. She should know that she was the one to get them here. That, though the cost was high, the reward was seeing Jasper almost smile as Mel went up on her tiptoes to knock a clump of snow out of his hair.

He ground his fingers into the cold metal edge of the bench and imagined he was grabbing her shoulders. _“You did this,”_ he’d tell her. “We _did this. We did horrible things but if we hadn’t done them, this moment never could have happened. We did what we had to do to protect our people and if you would just come back you could see that.”_

The flames flickered in the corner of his eye and he felt them inside of him, a burning rage that filled the pit in his heart and consumed him as much as it shamed him. _You said we were in this together. We were supposed to be in this_ together.

Heavy, uneven footsteps pulled him out of his head and he looked up as Raven sat down with a thump. Wick hovered a little ways behind her, determinedly studying a welded joint in the wall of the temporarily halted Arc expansion and not the woman stretching out her legs next to him.

“The cold is hell on my leg. Legs,” she said, digging her knuckles into a spot just above her knee. “Of course those mountain assholes couldn’t drill into the one that was already fucked up.”

“How are you?” He asked. “Aside from your leg.” 

“I’m _fine_.” Raven said, the emphasis on the last word seemed to be more directed over her shoulder to the blonde man lurking in the background. “I mean, sure, I have the occasional nightmare but who doesn’t these days? I sure as hell don’t need grandma worrywart hovering over my shoulder like I’ll fall apart if I move too fast.”

“How dare you, I do not hover,” Wick called. “I am merely inspecting this section of the expansion at Sinclair’s request.” He knocked a knuckle against the wall as though it proved his point. “The fact that you happen to be running around on the icy ground without any kind of assistance in the vicinity is purely coincidental. If I were hovering, which, I maintain I am not, it would be to look out for the well-being of that brace. I put a lot of effort into fixing it and it would be a damn shame if you smashed it by falling and breaking your neck.”

Raven rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “It’s still a piece of crap,” she muttered, the corner of her mouth twitching as she tried not to smile.

They sat in silence for awhile and Wick wandered further down the wall, periodically giving it a kick. Their breath made small clouds in front of them as they watched everyone play in the snow.

"It's okay to be mad at her, you know."

Bellamy started to protest and Raven cut him off with a look and a wave of her hand. "I know it's not fair and I know she did what she had to do, but I also know a thing or two about being unfairly mad at Clarke Griffin. You feel what you feel. Sometimes you have to be mad for awhile to get it out of your system and get over it. It’d suck if she’s out there getting her head on straight and comes back to find you moping around with all this baggage." 

“Maybe she’s not coming back,” he spat out, gripping the bench so hard he felt a knuckle pop.

“Please. As much as Clarke loves beating herself up, eventually she’ll need to know what’s happening here and if we’re all okay and who’s not eating enough and all that motherly bullshit. She’ll come back.”

Raven climbed awkwardly to her feet. He started to reach out to steady her but fell back at her glare. "Besides, angry Bellamy has to be better for morale than sad puppy Bellamy. Find something to do with yourself, you're bringing everyone down." At that she stomped off. Wick gave the wall one last integrity check knock and casually saluted Bellamy before strolling after her.

 

**

 

The next day Bellamy went to Kane and asked to be reassigned to woodcutting. A crew had stocked up as much as they could in preparation for the cold but it’s a large camp and they’ll need to keep their supply up to make it through the winter. He told Kane that guard duty gives him too much time to think and he’d rather be doing something with his hands. The older man studied him for a moment and nodded, agreeing that some time outside the walls might do him good.

To Bellamy’s surprise, it did. He liked walking into the forest at dawn, the world still and quiet as the light reflects off the icy branches. He liked the cold burn of the air when he gasped for breath after working up a sweat chopping down dead trees, thinning out the woods for new life to take root when the spring comes. He especially liked the thud of his axe, how the repetitive beat filled his head and drowned out his thoughts, how his vision shrank to the boundaries of his target and pushed aside the faces of all the people he’s killed and the person that left, how he could pour his rage and guilt and despair into each swing and leave a tiny piece of it behind with each blow.

He worked each day until he was too tired to dream, too tired to hope that one day the light will reflect off her hair as she steps out from behind a tree, too tired to feel the ache in his heart every time she didn’t.

 

***********

 

_Spring_

After the snow melted and leaves started to bud, filling the woods surrounding Camp Jaha with an ethereal green mist, Bellamy went back to guard duty. If he was completely honest with himself, he no longer felt at ease without a rifle within reach and it wasn’t like they didn’t need him. For a trained guard, they were pathetically jumpy. Some of them still fired at rabbits for fucks sake.

He, Octavia and Lincoln became the unofficial traveling guards. They went on expeditions to look for more Arc survivors, led hunting parties and escorted diplomatic groups to negotiate and trade with nearby villages. Though the coalition had fallen apart without a common enemy, they’d discovered that there were still plenty of clans willing to form alliances with the people of _Klark, Flosh Kil kom Maunon_.

The first time Bellamy heard that name, spoken with eerie reverence by some nomads that stopped to share their fire, he’d pulled Octavia aside to ask what it meant. “Destroyer of the Mountain Men,” she’d whispered.

He’d had to walk away, he could imagine the damage that title would cause. When he returned a few hours later, Octavia picked splinters out of his knuckles and bandaged his hands without a word.

 

**

 

He trekked out into the woods with Monty to gather medicinal plants now that the forest had woken back up. In addition to running what had become the official Camp Jaha still, Monty had requested an assignment in the infirmary working part of the time with Jackson and Abby. _“I’m good with plants,” he’d said. “I could help with herbal remedies and I’d- I’d like to help heal people.”_

Bellamy didn't see Monty as much on the days he worked in the infirmary. Ever since he'd been the one to break the news of Clarke's departure to Abby, they had an unspoken agreement to stay out of each other's way as much as possible.

_"She what?" Abby hissed and Bellamy can see where Clarke gets some of her ferocity from, it's there in the way Abby's eyes flash and how her injuries and Kane's restraining hand on her shoulder are barely enough to keep her on the cot. "What do you mean she left? How could you let her leave? Why didn't you stop her? You're the only one that could've stopped her," she cried._

But what Abby didn't see, and how could she? She's Clarke's mother, of course she wants Clarke there, is that while maybe Bellamy could've convinced her to stay, he couldn't have brought himself to say the words. Not when the cost would have been Clarke’s sanity. 

And so Bellamy avoided Abby. Their paths would cross, the camp wasn't big enough to completely avoid her, and when they did he could feel her eyes on him and if he'd turn to look at her he'd see her mouth pressed into a grim line as she stared him down, but she wasn't outright hostile. This meant he stayed away from Medical, preferring to have Octavia practice her field first aid on the occasions that called for it. If that meant he had a few lasting scars that could have maybe been avoided, well, what didn't kill him only made him stronger.

He scanned the trees as Monty carefully uprooted tiny plants to take back to camp for his newly plotted out garden. Though they hadn’t had any trouble with neighboring clans, that didn’t mean it would always be that way, and besides that, there were infinite ways to die on this fucked up planet. The other night Raven had told him about Clarke taking down a gorilla, with a handgun and a sword no less, and he hadn’t realized he was smiling at the thought until he asked Raven why she looked like she was about to fall over from shock.

As they made their way back, Bellamy could see Monty working his way up to saying something and he braced himself, figuring there was only one thing, one person, that would make him hesitate like that.

“Do you think she’s ever coming back?” When the question finally came, it was barely audible.

“I honestly don’t know,” Bellamy sighed. “I hope so.”

“I thought- I hoped- I don’t know.” Monty stared fixedly at the ground as they walked, gripping the straps of his pack as though they were a lifeline. “One of the reasons I really want this garden to work is I guess I thought that it’d be nice if we turned Camp Jaha into a real home for when Clarke comes back but then I think what if she never comes back and I don’t know, it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.” The words came out harsher than Bellamy intended. He stopped and tried again, softer this time. “It’s not stupid. This is our home now and we should make it feel like one for whatever reason. Even-” his voice broke and he cleared his throat. “Even if she doesn’t come back, it’s not stupid.” He wondered if he really believed that or if he just knew it was what Monty needed to hear.

They fell back into silence until they reached the edge of the meadow surrounding the camp. Monty stopped and turned to face him, shaking his hair out of his eyes. “I get why she left. What happened in the mountain, before the mountain,” he trailed off, gathering himself. “I understand why she felt like she had to leave. But I’m glad you stayed. It’s better with you here.” Without warning he threw his arms around Bellamy, giving him a quick, hard hug before turning away and marching up the path to the gates.

Bellamy stood by himself for a long time after that, listening to the birds chirp and the leaves rustle in the breeze before starting back to camp.

 

***********

 

_Summer_

By the time the summer had come around again, Bellamy realized things were getting better. He saw Jasper and Mel holding hands at breakfast and smiled a bit. Jasper needed someone sweet and quiet to remind him there was good in the world and he was glad he’d found that. He saw Monty and Miller sitting close together, sharing a drink and laughing softly. He saw Harper herding a group of giggling children across the yard, a sloppy wildflower crown askew on her head.

They weren’t whole, not yet, but he could suddenly envision a future where they would be and the thought made his steps a little lighter as he shouldered his pack and rifle and followed Lincoln and Octavia out the gates for an overnight hunting expedition.

 

**

 

That night he had a nightmare. He still has them, but the space between grew longer as time passed. He was back in the mountain, upside down, his head pounding. He could feel his blood pooling and draining and he struggled, suddenly finding himself with his hands locked around Lovejoy’s throat, the other man’s eyes bulging as he squeezed harder and harder. Lovejoy’s son was there screaming his throat raw and suddenly it was Octavia and there was a gun to her head and she was screaming and grabbing his arm and he could hear someone shouting _Bell! Bellamy! Wake up, it’s okay, you’re safe! Bellamy!_ but he wasn’t safe, none of them were safe, they were back in the mountain and covered in blood and burns and the screaming was getting louder and drowning out the voice and the pounding in his ears was getting faster and faster and he turned back to Lovejoy only to see Clarke’s face looking up at him, his hands wrapped around her neck and her eyes as big and deep and blue and he's drowning in an ocean he'll never live to see and she whispered _may we meet again_ and he realized the screaming was him and Octavia was shouting his name and he flung himself away, rolling up into a crouch, his rifle pointed at nothing and he was sweating and shaking as he realized that this was real. He was awake and Octavia was in front of him, gently pointing the barrel at the ground.

“It’s okay, Bell. It was a nightmare. Everything is fine, you’re safe,” she whispers.

He let out a breath and set the gun down, the night air cool against his sweaty forehead as he brushed the dampness from under his eyes with the back of a shaky hand.

Bellamy let Octavia fuss over him for a bit, pulling his head onto her shoulder and combing her fingers through his hair. Slowly the shaking subsided and he could breathe evenly again. He detangled himself from her and told her to get some sleep before sitting down by their dying fire across from Lincoln.

He and Lincoln had grown close over the past year. Bellamy found his quiet, steady presence soothing. He sat and listened to the trees shift around him, allowing the sounds of the forest to chase the nightmare from his mind. When he flexed his fingers he could no longer feel Clarke’s smooth skin beneath them.

“Do you still think about it?” He asked, his voice soft and gruff. Lincoln looked over at him. “The mountain, the...what they did to you.”

Lincoln studied him for a long moment. “All the time,” he replied.

They sat in silence watching the embers smolder and just when Bellamy thought the conversation was over, Lincoln spoke.

“It’s inside me now. The red. I can feel it waiting for my control to slip and an excuse to take over. I know what it is, how it feels and I’ll never be able to forget that.”

“What do you do? How do you live with it?” Bellamy asked and when he met Lincoln’s eyes, he knew the other man heard the unspoken question behind his words.

“You make peace with it,” Lincoln answered. “It helps when you have other things to live for. They make you want to keep fighting and keep hanging on. You accept that you’ll never be rid of it but you can’t let it stop you from living your life.”

Bellamy nods and lets the conversation die. He thinks of Jasper’s smile and Monty’s laugh and Harper’s crown and Octavia’s fingers in his hair and he feels the last of the nightmare fall away for now.

“May we meet again,” he whispers into the night, so low not even Lincoln can hear him, and accepts that even if they don’t, he has things to keep fighting for.

 

**

 

A few weeks later, Bellamy realized he’d made it all the way through the day without wondering what Clarke was doing.

He’d taken a group out on a hunting trip and they’d stopped in a small clearing for the night. The fire had burned down and Bellamy lay on his back and stared at the stars he’d once lived among.

A streak flashed across the sky and all of a sudden he heard her voice, as clear and present as if she were next to him, asking if you could wish on this kind of shooting star and this time he knew what he would wish for. _I’d wish for you to find peace,_ he thought. _Even if it’s not with us, with me, I’d wish for you to be at peace._

He thought about how it’d been about a year since she’d exploded into his life like a supernova. He thought about how it was coming up on a year since she’d left, just as abruptly. He lay there for a long time, wondering if she was out there, looking at the sky and wishing on the same bright star, and he realized he didn’t feel the hopeless aching in his chest that usually came when he thought of her.

 

***********

 

_Fall_

Fall found Bellamy once again going out into the forest with his axe, felling trees for not only firewood, but the cabins they were building around the west side of the fence. This time around he was able to notice the brilliant colors that lit up the woods around him. He enjoyed the crackle of walking through the blanket of crisp, fallen leaves, noting in the back of his head that while his crew made a fair share of noise, anyone sneaking up on them would have a hard time masking the sounds of their approach. He appreciated the smell that crept into the air along with the chill of the coming winter.

He had climbed up a tree to try and chop off a dead branch when it happened. A glint of light caught his eye and, because old habits die hard, he automatically turned to look. His subconscious no longer expected every flash to be sunshine gleaming off of golden hair so this time, when it was, he almost fell out of the tree.

It felt like his heart stopped and he sank back against the trunk, his abruptly numb fingers dropping his axe. He barely registered Miller's outraged _what the hell?_  from below.

For a long, frozen moment, he could only watch as Clarke wove through distant trees, an unfamiliar bag thrown over her shoulder and a new sword hanging from her hip. She stopped and her head came up, slowly turning in his direction like a compass finding true north. 

The next thing Bellamy knew, he was sprinting through the woods, ignoring the confused shouts behind him, not even remembering how he got down from the tree. He skidded to a halt and Clarke was there. Her face was thinner and her hair was longer but it was her, standing in front of him, like he'd wished and hoped and dreamed of for so long.

Bellamy started to reach for her and then stopped. Without warning the world faded and he was back to a year ago when he saw her everywhere but she was never really there and he felt the yawning pit in his chest crack open as he frantically wondered if this was real, if she was real. But then Clarke moved in close and her arms were around him and she had her face pressed against his chest and sound and color and oxygen came back. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her closer until all the space between them was gone and he buried his face in her hair and took what felt like his first real breath in over a year.

He pulled back and cupped her face, resting his forehead against hers, whispering _Clarke_ as he closed his eyes. Her name sounded strange rolling off his tongue and he realized it’s the first time he’s said it out loud since she left. He’s referred to her only as a pronoun, like that would somehow make her absence hurt less.

"Are you back?" He asked, unable to look at her because if she isn't, if she's going to leave again, he doesn't want to see her say it. He's already seen Clarke say goodbye to him too many times and he doesn't want to watch it happen again.

"I'm back," she said, her voice steady and sure as her hands slid over his shoulders and up his neck and tangle in the ends of his hair.

He opened his eyes and met hers and it was like falling into the sky. "Did you find what you needed?" 

She nodded and he pulled her close, cradling the back of her head against his chest as she squeezed him tight, not breaking apart until the rest of the crew caught up, bursting from between the trees, shouting Clarke's name. Miller swept her up into a spinning hug and her surprised laugh was the most beautiful thing Bellamy had ever heard. 

He lagged behind the group when they started back towards Camp Jaha. His head spun and the autumn leaves were so bright and vibrant it looked like the world was made of gold and the air had never tasted sweeter and there was no better feeling in the world than Clarke's palm pressed against his as their fingers entwine and they headed for home.

**Author's Note:**

> This was unbeta-ed and grammar is my nemesis so apologies for any mistakes. 
> 
> If I got the Trigedasleng wrong, again my bad, let me know.
> 
> I might do a Clarke POV chapter one day, idk. Hiatus is long and already killing me.
> 
> Comments and kudos are heaven if you feel like leaving them.


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